The Rule Of Three
by satisfaction
Summary: Years after tragedy drove Hermione Granger out of the magical world, she finds that she must return to it and face the loose ends of her former life that are tied into a mysterious prophecy: the rule of three.
1. A Bedroom In Surrey

**Part One: A Bedroom In Surrey  
**  
The room was dark, but Hermione Granger was not afraid. She was not afraid, for no matter how all-encompassing the dark would become, this room was familiar. After all, she had first found herself there at the tender age of fifteen. Hermione was not afraid, until...  
  
_"NOOOO!!!!_" A flash of light and a terrible, high-pitched screaming brought Hermione crashing back into reality, where she found herself sitting rigidly upright and sweating slightly in another familiar place-- her bedroom. She had been dreaming again, only dreaming...the lights, the sounds, the smell of the place had all been in her head. Hadn't it? As she shook the sleep slowly from her eyes, she found that she was wrong. Outside, lightning was flashing furiously in the inky sky, as though making rips in its intricate velvet tapestry. She soon realized that the screaming, too, had not been entirely a figment of her subconscious, for as she pulled back the cream-colored sheets of her bed, a tiny girl came bounding into the room, latching herself quickly to Hermione's thigh.   
  
"Mum," she cried softly, burying her face in the dream-cushioned sheets. "Mum, I'm scared."   
  
Slowly, Hermione's mind registered the scene. She was here, in her bedroom in Surrey, alone, save for the tiny girl at her bedside. "Lily," she said quietly, reaching out to the mop of curls atop the child's head. "Did the lightning scare you?"  
  
"No," said the girl, whimpering as she slowly pulled her face from the covers to peer into her mother's eyes. "I...I had a bad dream."  
  
"Bad dream?" Hermione cooed soothingly. "Well, why don't you come up here and tell me about it? It'll help to make it less scary." She smiled, and the girl obeyed.   
  
"Well..." Lily began, tucking her blonde head under her mother's arm as she spoke, "I'm not quite sure where I was, but I know that it was an awful sort of place. Dark and dank and really foul-smelling. But I felt like I'd been there before. And I wasn't afraid, until..."  
  
Hermione swallowed hard in an attempt to shut out all thoughts of the "until" in her own dream. "Until what?"  
  
"I heard a scream." said Lily, cowering, almost, at the sound of her own voice forming the words, as if she, too, might scream at any moment. "It was a dreadful sound, and it gave me such a fright, and then...then you were there. But you were young, like in school, sort of. And you were with these other lads; I don't suppose I've ever seen them before. But the look on your face, Mum...you were dead scared!"  
  
Her breath quickening as panic ran cold through her blood, Hermione did her best to reply calmy and evenly. "You were screaming, love."  
  
But the little girl persisted. "I know. I know, Mum. Because I was scared for you...this other man, he didn't look very friendly at all, and I thought he might...well, the way you were looking at him, he--"  
  
"Other man?"  
  
"Yes. There was another man there, a very dodgy looking one, and he kept laughing and laughing, and then he said something I couldn't understand, raised up his hand, and--"  
  
"What?" Her teeth now chattering with nerves, Hermione lashed out in the hopes of one last chance to return her daughter's story from where she feared it might be going. "What did he do?"  
  
"He shot out this...this light! Right out of his hand, Mum! And he knocked the three of you-- you and your mates, I mean-- right up into the air! It was like you were _flying_ or something for a moment. And then..." The child called Lily burst into sobs, never to finish her story. But Hermione didn't need to hear the end to know the outcome. She had, after all, lived it, and could not only recount the rest of the story but could also fill in the gaps left by things her daughter hadn't mentioned and, hopefully, hadn't seen at all. But she would do neither. Instead, she simply said, "Don't be daft, Lily. You know perfectly well that people can't..._fly_." 


	2. The Misses Granger

**Part Two: The Misses Granger**  
  
Moving back into the Muggle world had been Hermione's choice. However, it had been one of the three most difficult decisions she would make in her life, and she often questioned whether she had in fact chosen the right path. No one had ever bothered writing a book about this, after all. _What To Do When Your Unborn Child's Father Is Presumed To Have Been Blown To Oblivion by an Evil Dark Lord_. What a mouthful! Of course, he wasn't exactly _presumed_ dead, really...Lily's father was dead...whoever he was.   
  
She could remember, vividly, the day she had enrolled Lily in a private daycare facility in a nice part of town...the day the decision was finalized, made permanent both by words spoken and unspoken, a creed of the mouth and of the heart. A tall, pretentious woman peered down her nose at Hermione's shrinking figure, her brown hair curled into a sleek bun. "Mrs...no, I'm sorry...Miss Granger, is it? I see here that you have neglected to fill in the space on your daughter's application marked _'father'._ Shall I fill it in for you? What is...ah..._Lily_'s father's name?"  
  
Hermione was staring down into her purse, her hands stroking slowly over a pair of pictures, her eyes welling up with pain. She had taken these pictures with a Muggle camera on the train, hoping to show them to her friends away from Hogwarts. The first was of a tall, red-haired boy, freckled and grinning next to the luggage compartment, a tiny smudge of dirt evident on the side of his nose. In the second picture, another boy, shorter than the first, with the darkest of black hair and piercing green eyes. His round glasses were sliding off the bridge of his nose as he contorted his eyebrows mischieviously, his wand 'tween his teeth. They were the only pictures of the boys she had left...  
  
"Miss Granger?" The woman was tapping her pen irritably against the side of her glasses, still peering down at Hermione with a disgustingly bemused expression.   
  
Snapping her purse shut, Hermione took in a great gulp of air and meekly replied, "I don't know. Er-- there is no father to speak of. Not anymore."  
  
And she had stuck to that theory. From that moment on, Hermione established the absence of Lily's father to be completely normal, as well as everything else about the life of Lily and Hermione Granger. Hermione herself went to work as a typist at the office of a wealthy businessman and took up sewing classes in the evening. She told her classmates that Lily's father was a gorgeous but no-good lawyer who'd run off with his secretary before Lily was born and joked that now, she was the wiser, and aimed to be that lucky sort of helper herself! When Lily was old enough, she enrolled her in a private school where they taught swimming and gave riding lessons and Equestrian shows and everyone was happy.   
  
But, on the inside, Hermione was as shriveled up as the flowers she tried her best to tend to in the garden. Her decision about Lily haunted her every free second, almost more than the rest of the terrible mistakes that had brought her thusfar. This decision meant that she could not even frame the photos of the only two men she'd ever dearly love. She'd simply have to keep them in her purse for all eternity, stealing furtive glances at their frozen, smiling faces until she could burn them and lay down to die. 


	3. A Man At The Door

**Part Three: A Man At The Door**  
  
The week that followed the nightmares was relatively uneventful, seeming almost placid in the face of the screaming and the torrential rains of that night. Lily carried on her school duties at Bridgestone Academy while Hermione used her spare time to bury herself in errands she promised to run for the Surrey Women's Auxiliary. Even the idle weekend passed rather smoothly, for it was quite without incident. That is, until there was a knock at the door around 3 P.M. on Sunday.   
  
"Mum?" said Lily, gingerly pushing open the kitchen door where Hermione stood, stiring something thick in the dinner pot. "There's a man at the door...I'm not quite sure who he is, so I thought I'd come and get you before I answered."   
  
"Oh?" Hermione's eyebrows raised from behind the large pot as she turned to look to her daughter. "Well, did he look frightening, Lily?"  
  
"No, ma'am. He looked a bit comical, actually. He's got quite the brightest red hair I think I've ever seen!"   
  
The spoon in Hermione's hand dropped to the floor with a loud _thunk_ as she stared, agape, through the open crack in the kitchen door. Quickly, she turned down the stove she was cooking on and fell into step with Lily, her breath growing shallow as she neared the doorway. Resisting the urge to peek skittishly through the frilled curtains, Hermione placed a shuttering hand on her daughter's shoulder and slowly unlocked and opened the door.  
  
"Hermione." said the figure as his face opened slowly into a pained, almost solemn smile.   
  
Slowly, the hand gripping Lily's shoulder relaxed as Hermione reached up to massage her constricted throat with the other. "Fred."   
  
Whipping her head 'round at the tone of recognition in her mother's voice, Lily asked, "You know this man, Mum?"  
  
"Ah...ah, yes. Yes I do. Fred, this is my daughter, Lily." She shoved Lily slightly forward and the girl nodded at the stranger politely. Hermione then gestured toward him. "Lily, this is Fred Weasley, an old friend of mine from school."   
  
"You mean the one in London?"  
  
Hermione bit her lip and glanced at Fred, praying for silence. When he said nothing, she bent down and turned Lily toward her. "Yes, that's the one. Now why don't you go and finish stiring the dinner for me while I talk with Mr. Weasley, hmm?"   
  
"But the spoon's dirty, Mum, you dropped it all over the floor when I told you that--"  
  
"You can clean it up, can't you?" Hermione interjected, steering the girl in the direction of the kitchen. As Lily walked away, grumbling, Hermione turned her attention back to the man at the door.   
  
"London?" he said quizzically.   
  
"Why don't you come in and sit down? You look-- well...you look ridiculous, really." She cast a surveying eye over the man as she closed the door behind him, taking in his strange selection of clothes. The black sweater he wore was normal enough, but paired with purple pinstriped trousers that were clearly several inches to short and a pair of deep green boots that looked suspiciously like dragon's hide, it was quite a sight! No wonder Lily had been hesitant to open their door to him...Comical, indeed!  
  
Fred seated himself in one of the high-backed chairs in Hermione's sitting room, Hermione herself taking the chair opposite him. He smiled more comfortably as he settled himself into the chair, breathing in deeply the smells of her house that seemed familiar and still so distant. After a moment's silence, he said, "Making dinner with the little one, eh?"  
  
Hermione shook her head and gave a bit of a chuckle. "It's just some canned stew. This is one of the few nights Lily and I are eating at home...I'm not a very good cook, you see?"   
  
Fred laughed shortly and pulled his chair a little closer to Hermione's. He was now directly facing her. "What? Something that Hermione Granger _can't do_?"   
  
Hermione could feel his eyes penetrating hers, no doubt searching for the know-it-all little girl that she had once been. "You'd be surprised at just how long that list has grown over the years."  
  
"Well," said Fred, leaning even closer to Hermione as he spoke, "I hope that list isn't too long, because then I might have wasted a trip." 


	4. The One Who Lived

**Part Four: The One Who Lived**  
  
In an instant, it clicked-- the tone of Fred's voice, the look on his face, his very presence in her home-- it was all a set up! Enraged, she yanked herself from her perch on the chair. Brandishing a fist in the air as though to strike him, she bellowed, "Fred Weasley, if you think for one minute that you're going to come in here and try to tell me that--" A sharp intake of breath from the doorway told Hermione that she was not free to speak. In a single graceful movement, Hermione dragged Fred out of the chair by his collar and pulled him swiftly into the hall, where she continued. "If you think that just because you've come and found me, I've got to feel abliged to start taking orders from _Minister Finch-Fletchy_ again--"  
  
"If you remember correctly, _Justin_ Finch-Fletchy was your friend at Hogwarts, which, by the way, _isn't_ in London!" Fred was shouting now, his face red, his hands flailing as he paced--_one-two_--the width of the hall.And then, abruptly as he had begun, he stopped. Inches from Hermione, he stopped, turning to face her as he dropped his voice to a nearly inaudible whisper. "That's not why I'm here, Hermione. You know perfectly well that I don't work for the Ministry, and even if I did, I would've just sent you an owl!"  
  
"Bloody mess that would have been, owls with postage swooping round this neighborhood in plain sight of the children..."  
  
"Hermione!!" Fred's eyes were wide and bulging as he grabbed Hermione's shoulders roughly, ablaze with a passion she had never yet seen in him. "I am here because I need your help. I need it, Hermione. Me. Not the Ministry, not Justin, not Hogwarts, just me. Fred." If Hermione thought that his face could not come any closer without colliding with her own, she was wrong. Fred's face was pink and sweaty as it inched ever-closer to Hermione's, its nose touching hers on the end as he spoke-- harsh, grating, deftly quiet. "You remember me, don't you? Ron's brother...The one who lived?" 


	5. Mrs Weasley's Job

**Part Five: Mrs. Weasley's Job**  
  
"I'm here for my mother." Fred's voice softened as he released Hermione from his grip, retreating to the top of the hall. He cast his eyes at his feet and began wringing his hands nervously, as though embarrassed at his outburst.   
  
"Molly? Is something wrong with her?"   
  
"Not yet." said Fred tersely. "But there will be, if Davies has is way. Rodger Davies took the position of Head Chairwizard of St. Mungo's last year, and he's talking about closing the mental ward by the end of the year."   
  
Hermione drew closer to him, her face showing the puzzlement she felt. "But...Mrs. Weasley isn't in St. Mungo's, is she?!"  
  
"She works there. Started not long after you left. It helps to keep her mind off...off the others, you know."  
  
Hermione did know. Of all the wizarding families who lost loved ones during Lord Voldemort's third return to power, the Weasleys had been hit the hardest. Originally a close family of nine, the Weasleys found themselves reduced to three when the smoke cleared and Voldemort had been vanquished. The remaining Weasleys-- Molly, Ginny, and Fred-- still lived in their old home, The Burrow, trying desperately not to think of the 6 men their family was without, including Hermione's best friend Ron and Fred's own twin brother.   
  
"She'll go crazy if they shut it down, Hermione!" Slowly, back against the wall, Fred slumped onto the floor, followed closely by Hermione. "She's always taking extra shifts just to keep busy. Five sons and a husband, all gone. She'd die from heartsickness if all she had to do was stay home and think about it! ...And it isn't just her. They aren't going to offer another treatment facility for a couple of years after they close the ward at St. Mungo's!! Think about who's there."   
  
Hermione blanched, her eyes bulging as her airways constricted instantly. He couldn't know, could he? He couldn't possibly know that--  
  
"Neville Longbottom's mum is still living there." he said, shaking his head in disgust. Hermione let out an enormous sigh of relief and settled back up against the wall as Fred continued. "Last I heard, they were still trying to teach Professor Lockheart to read again. And there are loads of others I don't even know about."   
  
"Right..." she said distractedly. Then, coming to attention once more, "But, why have you come to ask _me_ for help? You know I haven't been anywhere near magic for almost nine years."   
  
Fred sighed, his face in his hands. "I don't know, Hermione. I don't know. It's just that-- well, when we were kids, you always seemed to care about all the backwards things in the world. Remember all that work you did for S.P.E.W.? I guess I thought that if you cared that much about house elves, then you could find it in your heart to help _Ron_'s mother." Fred sprang to his feet and began moving out of the hallway, towards the door. "But I guess I was wrong. Cheerio, Hermione."   
  
She almost let him go. Lily was there, watching, as he turned the handle to walk out of her life forever. She shouldn't say anything. She had come so far since she left; agreeing to help Fred would ruin all of it. So she almost let him go. Almost...  
  
"Fred, wait!" Hermione flung herself from the hallway, latching onto Fred's shoulder as he stepped through the door. "What can I do to help you?"  
  
Throwing her the closest thing she had seen to a real smile since he lost his twin, Fred brought the door to a close. "Come back with me," he said. "Come back and see my mother." 


	6. Like Mother, Like Daughter

**Part Six: Like Mother, Like Daughter**  
  
Lily's eyes were wide as she surveyed the strange man now sitting in her living room. As she gave a half-hearted attempt at pretending to play with her dolls, the man flipped through stations on the telly with a curious sort of fascination, as though he had never seen it before. So she stared, unabashed, as his brow wrinkled in concentration over a cartoon children's show. She had never seen anyone quite like him before, so unaware of the societal rules that governed her life, a blatant rebel against public niceties and conventions. Lily supposed she had never seen a man quite so wonderful in all her life! And yet, she knew nothing about him, only that he wished to take her mother away from her, to his mother in some place she didn't know. Of course, this fact didn't really bother Lily; as close as she was to her mother, she'd never felt particularly possessive of her. After all, she was her child, her one and only daughter, and her mother's loyalty had always been clear and unwavering. She was, however, quite curious about the secrecy with which her mother had conducted this stranger's visit, and what sort of people and places would put her mother in such a state that she would neglect to include her in her conversations, as she was accustomed to.  
  
Carefully, Lily crawled the length of the floor over to the swinging kitchen doorway, peeking in the door at her mother, who was twittering away with something on the stove. When at last she was sure that her mother would not soon be returning to the common room, Lily crept over to the chair in which the red-haired man was seated, stopping a few feet in front of it to wait for the perfect moment to begin her interrogation.  
  
"Excuse me, sir." she said, tugging slightly on his pant leg as she spoke.  
  
"Oh!" said the man, looking down at the girl at his feet. "Hello there. Lily, is it?" The strange man lowered himself off of the chair and to his knees on the floor, where he extended a hand to Lily.   
  
"Yes, sir." She said, obliging. "And you're...Mr...Weasley?"   
  
He laughed. "You can call me Fred. All the kids back home do."  
  
"Kids?" Lily smiled. "You mean your children?"   
  
"Gads! No. I mean the children I work for. Er-- the children who come to my shop."   
  
"Shop? What sort of a shop?"   
  
Leaning back against his chair, Fred stretched his legs out in front of him, Lily quickly scooting up to take a closer seat next to him. "You are a curious one, aren't you? Just like your mother. I work in a joke shop near London; we sell pranks and tricks to school kids in the area."   
  
"We?"  
  
"Well...I guess it is just me now, isn't it? I used to run the shop with my brother, you see, before he...ah...died."   
  
"He died?" the man merely looked down at his hands and nodded. "I've seen people die before, you know."   
  
Looking up once more, the man cocked his head to oneside, surveying Lily with the same intent gaze he'd used when looking at the television. "Have you?"  
  
"Yes." She said, nodding solemnly. "In my dreams, all the time." Then, without even a second thought to just how trustworthy this man might be, Lily let slip a secret that she had withheld even from her mother. "I think one of them might be my dad."   
  
Blinking furiously at his surprise, Fred tried not to gasp. "Your-- your dad?"  
  
"Yes. ...Do you know my father?"   
  
For a moment, it seemed to Fred as though he simply would not, could not answer her. He could only stare into those large green eyes set in freckled face framed by vibrant curling hair and wait for it, the moment when he would know. And then it was there-- a spark, the tiniest tinkling bell of recognition deep in the recesses of his mind. _Yes_. "Yeah...yeah, I'd like to think that I do." 


	7. The Wizard's Child

**Part Seven: The Wizard's Child**  
  
"A wizard?" Lily stared incredulously at the pair of them seated across from her at the table. The uncomfortable dinner that the Grangers had shared with Fred Weasley had turned into a loose, brandy-induced dessert, which had become a frank and open discussion about things Lily was quite sure she hadn't really heard right, things that Hermione had been waiting nearly nine years to confess. "You're trying to tell me that this man is...a wizard? Mum, I really think that you should put your wine glass down for a minute--"   
  
"Lily..." Fred's eyes were soft as they focused on the mop-headed girl in front of him. He knew how she felt, being hit suddenly with such outlandish ideas that she could barely catch her breath. He himself had been struggling to gasp in enough air since the moment Hermione had answered the door. "I know it's crazy, but you've got to listen to your mother. I'm a wizard, just like your dad. Bloody brilliant, that one...and your mum, too. Top witch in her class at Hogwarts all seven years."   
  
"Hogwarts?" Abandoning all senses of decorum, Lily allowed her mouth to gape, hanging open as she continued to stare in disbelief. "Mum?! My...my dad?!"  
  
"Yeah! Of course, he never was much one for schooling...not like your mum, anyway...but he was a great man, and a great wizard. Right good Quidditch player, too, in his own right. Had good instincts, and he was frighteningly loyal, right down to the end..." Fred's eyes welled pink and puffy, and he paused as Lily stared, transfixed. While he attempted to regain his composer, Lily found herself creeping slowly toward him, leaning further and further onto the table as though she meant to crawl over it and wriggle right into Fred's very skin, a place where words like "Hogwarts" and "Quidditch" and her father weren't so strange and foreign.   
  
After a moment, Fred raised his head to speak once more. "I bet you'd like to meet some of your family, wouldn't you? On your dad's side, of course. You could come with your mum and me, when we go back to--"   
  
Awakening from her dormant complancency next to him, Hermione shot out an arm towards Fred's shoulders. "Fred!!" She took a few slow breaths, deeply in and out, before pacing herself into a calmer voice. "Fred, that's quite enough. As she well knows, Lily's father was a lawyer from Edinberg who knew nothing about my strange...er...abilities, and certainly did not engage in any of them himself. Besides, it's late, and I think it's best if we don't overload her before bed."   
  
"But, Mum, you can't just tell me all these things and then expect me to--"  
  
"A lawyer?!" Suddenly, Fred was standing, his chair flying out from beneath him and crashing with a thud several feet from the table. "How dare you even think up a lie like that to tell that little girl! You're-- you're the worst sort of Muggle, you are, Hermione Granger! You're--" Lily's mind swam with details as Fred began to pace, hands on his head. "You're just like the Dursleys, you are!"   
  
"FRED!" Hermione stood, clearly incensed, pulling herself up to her full height as she shouted. "Lily's father was a Muggle, a lawyer, who had nothing to do with--"  
  
"Liar!" Roughly, he grabbed Hermione's shoulder, wrenching her close to his face. "That child has Weasley written all over her." 


	8. Hermione's Secret

**Part Eight: Hermione's Secret**  
  
"Fred..." Hermione's voice was suddenly quiet, sounding meek and child-like against Fred's rage. Jerking at his sleeve, she began to nudge him toward the hall. "Fred, I think we should talk in private for...for just a moment, Fred, please..."  
  
Still fuming, Fred allowed himself to be steered out of the kitchen, his eyes locked on Lily, who was trailing close behind, protesting. "Mum!" she shouted. "Mum, stop it! You can't go in there and talk about me like I'm not here! You're talking about my father!!!"   
  
But Hermione continued moving, down the hallway to the back of the Granger's household and into her bedroom, where she shut the door just before Lily could follow them in. Once the raving outside the door had subsided and Lily's footsteps could be heard plodding down the hall, Hermione collapsed on to her rumpled bedcovers, her head in her hands.   
  
"So just what are you playing at, Hermione? ...Hiding the truth from your daughter like you were a good-for-nothing Petunia Dursley? A lawyer's daughter, pfft! One look at her and you can tell that she's magic!!! Just what were you planning to do when her Hogwarts letter came, eh? Throw it out with the trash?"  
  
"I...I don't know." Hermione's shoulders shook lightly as tears leaked through her fingers. Nine years of pretending, of trying so hard to block it out, and this is what it had come down to. Lily would hate her, of course, for what she had done; she'd never understand that she had been trying to protect her, her daughter, her one and only...  
  
"Hermione." Fred's voice close to her ears startled her out of her reverie. Kneeling in front of her, he slowly took her chin into his hand, wiping away a stray tear with his thumb. She was lovely, really, and Fred knew that he could no more hold anger towards her than his brother even could. "Look at me. I need you to look at me and tell me if that girl is Ron's daughter." Swallowing the lump that was once again forming in his throat, Fred continued, his voice back to a strained whisper. "That nose, I...I mean, it's just like Ron's! And the freckles-- I don't know why I didn't see it the second I laid eyes on her! Even her hair...well, I mean, it's yours, of course, but the colouring...looks like it could turn at any minute, doesn't it?" A wistful smile appeared on Fred's face, and Hermione knew that he was thinking of his younger brother. She imagined that her face took on a similar expression when he came to mind. "I don't know how, but...but she's Ron's, Hermione. She's got to be. ...Isn't she?"  
  
"I...I don't know, Fred."   
  
"You don't know? Wha--"   
  
Hermione retreated to the top of her bed, seating herself atop a plush pillow and drawing her knees up under her chin. "You know that I was with Harry." she said shortly. She gave a sardonic, mirthless laugh. "We were the quintessential couple: me, the quietly brilliant and compassionate witch and the brave and famous Harry Potter, two-time conquerer of the evil Lord Voldemort. It was like a fairy-tale, don't you think? And I loved him, I really, really did. But Harry had been through so much, and he was so busy...he never had time to deal with any of it. He carried around all this pent-up aggression, and sometimes I couldn't take it. I just wanted to shake him, you know? And tell him that I needed a break from all his...anguish. But of course I could never say that. He was such a fragile man...So I would tell it all to Ron, and he became to me what I was to Harry: a firing wall, a punching bag. But you were right, what you said...Ron was the most loyal friend there ever was. He never once let me down, and I told him everything. He told me things, too, of course, but there was something...something he could never tell me."   
  
"He cared for you." Fred said solemnly, staring at something nonexistant in his hands.  
  
"Right. And he never said a word, until...well, until he did. I was staying late at the Ministry, and he'd come by to see if I was alright, and he-- he just sat down and told me. Said he'd always fancied me, right from the start. Said he used to keep Harry up late talking about me; I guess that's how Harry first came 'round to the idea. He told me that he felt terribly guilty, fantasizing about his best friend's girl, secretly hating him for having me. It shocked me...and I was so angry at Harry that I just didn't think about it, and then--"  
  
"So, you had a go with my brother, then?"  
  
"Oh, Fred, it's not like I was having some kind of a stand with him!! I loved him, too, don't you see? Harry and Ron were like two parts of myself...we were three, but we were one in the same." Hermione paused, taking a breath to survey the damage of her babbling. Fred was staring intently into her eyes. It was now, or never. "I was seeing both of them for about a year. I hated myself for it, really I did, because it was like I was tearing them apart. Ron was barely able to speak to Harry without feeling ashamed and angry all at once. Harry, of course never knew. I tried, but I just couldn't choose. And then...well, I didn't have to, did I?"  
  
Wordlessly, Fred placed a hand on Hermione's back as she crumbled, sobbing, into his neck. His smell was different from Ron's, but the coarsness of the skin on his neck and the soft feeling of one of Mrs. Weasley's home-made sweaters brought him back to her as she cried. Slowly, methodically, she wound her hands through his vibrant red hair, smelling it, feeling it against her face, thinking--  
  
"Fred!" Suddenly, Hermione's head shot up, her face becoming animated once more as Fred turned to her. "I need you to do something for me." 


	9. The Blood Of The Father

**Part Nine: Blood Of The Father**  
  
The clinic was cold, and its sterile walls and floors seemed to be closing in on Hermione and Fred as they sat, straightbacked, in the bolted-down metal chairs of the waiting room. Any minute now...Lovingly, she fondled the hairbrush laying in her lap. It had been Harry's, one of the few possessions she'd kept back from the crowds that came to empty his house after they'd found him, cold and lifeless, like the walls that surrounded her. The mornings she'd wake up in his bed, she would run the brush over his untidy locks made even more unkempt by the night's activities and laugh as they sprange back to life despite her attempts. Sighing as she slowly detatched herself from her nostalgia, Hermione turned to Fred. His face was pallid and his eyes were red, but he seemed oddly at peace. Earlier, he had seemed to be holding his breath in anticipation, but now his breath was streaming steadily through clenched teeth as he stared at the cracks in the floor tiles.  
  
"Fred," she said timidly, placing an awkward hand on his arm. "I want to thank you...for doing this for me."   
  
Curtly, he stood. "I'm not doing this for you," he said, beginning to pace. "I'm doing this for Ron."   
  
Hermione grunted a response, turning back to her musings with the brush. All things considered, Fred was starting to take things rather well. She had felt him recoiling from her, reeling in the friendly air with which he carried himself, even as he had wrapped his arms around her sob-racked form. It was only fair, of course. She had betrayed his trust and soiled the name of his dead brother, and then asked him to give of himself in order to help her clear her name. At first, he had insisted that there must be some sort of magical way to divine the name of Lily's father, but Hermione stood her ground. There would be no magic meddling in this affair. She wanted science, logic-- proof in the form of a printed report. She wanted something she could read. So Fred had complied, and submitted a DNA sample to the lab they had visited to match the hair that Hermione had given in representation of Harry. And then they had sat. For what seemed like a million years, they sat, sighing and groaning and twiddling there thumbs. But, any minute now...  
  
"Miss Granger?" A portly nurse had appeared in the room, her flaxen-coloured hair slipping out of its loose braid as she spoke. "I have the results for your paternity tests here. There are separate reports for both children." The nurse accosted Hermione slowly, her face serene and smiling as though she had not just sent another lightning bolt into Hermione's ever-darkening sky.   
  
"I'm-- I'm sorry," Hermione said, flabberghasted. "Both children?"  
  
"Well, yes..." said the nurse curiously. "Since the births took place locally we were able to obtain blood samples from both babies easily. The request form you filled out only mentions a question over one child, but we assumed you would like them both tested, as they were born at basically the same time, I--"  
  
"What?" Fred, who until then had appeared to be lost in a trance of his memories, stood, snatching the papers out of the nurse's hands. Despite whimpers of protests from Hermione and the admonishing gaze of the nurse next to her, Fred read aloud the top lines from each page. "In the question of blood sample A, Miss Lily Genevra Granger, tests indicate that there is a 99.9% possibility that the father is blood sample C, Mister Ronald Weasley." Pausing only shortly, for a gasp of relief, Fred continued to read. "In the question of blood sample B, Mister Albus Arthur Granger, tests indicate...father is.....Harry Potter. Hermione, what the--"  
  
But Hermione wasn't listening. Air refused to enter her lungs, no doubt scared out of them just by the sound of his name. Albus Arthur, secret number two. Before she could answer or protest in her defense, the room began to spin, and the world went black. 


	10. Unspeakable

**Part Ten: Unspeakable**  
  
_"Come on, Hermione..." Harry swaggered slowly to his feet, wriggling his legs free from the bedsheets with great effort. "Can't you just wait five more minutes? Call in sick; they'll never know." Clumsily, he crept up behind Hermione, wrapping his arms around her waist as she watched him in the mirror.  
  
Beginning to twist her hair into a loose bun, Hermione smiled at his reflection. "Harry," she said, giggling as he dug his fingers gently into her ticklish sides. "You know perfectly well that I can't do that. The Ministry doesn't allow sick days for my department."  
  
"But you work in the Department of Mysteries...would they even know you were gone?"   
  
"Ha, ha." Hermione scoffed, turning to face Harry and lacing her fingers through his. "Just because the Ministry is lax with your field of work doesn't mean they'll be flexible with mine." She smiled, kissing him lightly on his forehead. "I'm not an Auror."  
  
"That's right, you're an Unspeakable." He said very matter-of-factly, his grin being broken by a yawn. "What do you do in there anyway?"  
  
"Same thing I do here." Hermione shot back, mimicking Harry's factual tone. Then, giggling as she threw him backward onto the foot of the bed, she added, "_Unspeakable_ things."  
_  
The light from the pensieve cast a silvery glow on Hermione's tear-stained face as she watched the memories flicker and swirl before her in the liquid-like mist. It was good to be back here, in a ramshackle room above the Leaky Cauldron, surrounded by the remnants of love and a sleeping child. During the visit to the clinic, Lily had stayed with a cousin of Hermione who had three girls all close to Lily's own age, and was thankfully tired out quickly; when Fred and Hermione had arrived back at the house later that evening, Lily was already asleep. To Hermione's delight, she had stayed in her deep trance throughout the length of the drive and had not stirred even when Fred lifted her from the car and settled her into their rented room. This meant that, for at least one more day, Hermione could stave off the great telling of truth that was to soon come.   
  
Turning to take in the sleeping form of her daughter on the left, Hermione sighed as a single tear slipped from her thin cheeks into the frothing pensieve and another image bubbled up to the surface-- a thin, freckled man with sad eyes and hair the exact colour of the center of a flame.   
  
_"Hermione," The voice from the doorway caused Hermione to jump a little in her seat, her attention having been focused on the mountain of paperwork in front of her. She looked up to see Ron leaning against her doorframe, smiling sheepishly. "The Minister just sent some of the Aurors out to investigate some suspicious activities in Burmingham. Harry was with them...I thought you might want to know."   
  
"Oh." said Hermione, crestfallen. She should have known that Ron at her doorway so late at night could not have been good news. Years ago, Ron had somewhat unwillingly taken the position that his brother, Percy, stepped down from after the Ministry Of Magic replaced its former head Cornelius Fudge with a former classmate of Hermione and Ron, Justin Finch-Fletchy. It was a far cry from Ron's ambition of becoming an Auror like Harry, but it was a safe job, a steady chance for Ron to recover from the tumult that marked his childhood.   
  
"You alright, there?" Ron asked, leaning a little further into the doorway to her office and wavering there as though unsure whether or not he should enter. This behavior had become somewhat of a staple of Ron's later life; though he remained loyal to his friends and always willing to engage in the most dangerous activities to help them out, his personal life was an anomaly as he became introverted and bumbling, stealing only furtive glances at the confidence he had once possessed in himself.   
  
"I'm fine." Hermione replied unconvincingly, heaving herself away from her desk with a huff. "It's just that Harry and I were suppose to go out tonight, after work." She laughed tersely, "It was supposed to be a make-up date for the last time he was called out at the last minute."   
  
"Well, he couldn't help it." Ron answered, his confidence in Harry evident in his tone. "It's in the job description, you know." He looked down at his feet, scuffing his sneakers absently against the door frame and biting his lip as he thought. Then, as though the words were escaping his mouth just moments before he was able to catch them, he looked up. "I could take you out for a bite when you get done there, if you'd like." He spat, blanching even as he spoke. His eyes bulged and his cheeks turned to only a few shades lighter than his vibrant hair as he added in a hurried mumble, "You know, since it's dark and-- and, I mean, if...you might be lonely."   
  
Hermione smiled sweetly. "That sounds like an excellent idea, Ron. We haven't spent time together without Harry around in ages."  
  
"Right." He said, turning quickly on his heel to leave. Just as he put his foot out to begin his voyage to the lifts, he turned back. "Just as friends, you know, our date-- !! I, I mean...our...uh...not-date." He took a steadying breath, ending his barrage of words with, "Our dinner.", and turned quickly to leave.  
  
"Of course." She said to his retreating figure, chuckling to herself as she turned back to her work._  
  
With a last deep breath, Hermione pulled herself off of the bed and made her way to an old wooden trunk at the end of it containing everything that was left of her life as a wizard. Wordlessly, she placed the pensieve back in its velvety case and crawled back under the covers, sending a last sweeping glance around the room to see her daughter breathing deeply on the opposite side of the bed and Fred, in the corner, snoring peacefully. 


	11. Taking Flight

**Part Eleven: Taking Flight**  
  
Lily's mind was reeling that morning. The wind that was whipping through the open car window made her face tingle and her hair splay out behind her, suspended in the air, as though her body had lifted itself out of the steel-and-cushion Ford and into the sky to fly. But Lily took no notice of the soaring feeling in her stomach that had become all too familiar over the years. Instead, she stared blankly at the seat in front of her, silently marveling at the fact she now knew it to be possible. Grinning, she replayed the words again in her mind, testing them out. She was a witch. And witches could fly.   
  
As the car rolled to a stop at a red light, Lily caught Fred's eye in the rear-view mirror. "Alright, Lily?" He asked, his grin lighting up even the dark, sad circles under his eyes. He turned to her mother. "Hermione?"  
  
Hermione, who was sitting up rigidly in her seat with a chalky face and eyes fixed in front of her, merely nodded. Lily, however, replied with vigor, her face stretching into a wide smile. "Yes sir, Uncle Fred!"   
  
Fred chuckled heartily before turning his attention back to the car. Lily cast a fleeting look at her mother, who was still staring straight ahead as though entranced by a bug on the windshield. Clearly, the morning's conversations had taken a heavy toll on her. Lily recalled how her mother's thin face had wrinkled into an expression of intense agony as she told her daughter about her life in a world that she herself could only imagine-- a storybook life of magic and spells and werewolves and evil dark sorcerers and her father, Ron Weasley. Tears had streamed from her mother's eyes as she showed Lily a picture, ancient and worn, of a smiling adolescent with deeply-pigmented red hair quite similar to Fred's and a nose and freckles identical to her own. For a moment, she had wondered if she should be crying, too, at the father she had lost, had never known, only to find that she could not. This was, after all, the first picture of any father she had ever seen, and she was simply too fascinated to hurt. When her mother became too frazzled to continue with her explainations, Fred had taken over, recounting with a dramatic flair the circumstances of her father's adventurous life and heroic death, wherein he and a friend called Harry Potter had died defending her mother from a killing curse. All the while, her mother had sat nearby, limp as a ragdoll, breathing shallowly as her eyes flitted between the two of them. She did not speak until the end, when she feebly added that Harry and Ron had not only saved her life but Lily's own, as well as the life of her brother, Albus.   
  
_Brother_. Like so many others, the word still tasted strangely in her mouth when she spoke it. During the long ride to her grandparent's house, Lily had learned to accept and understand the basic concepts of Hogwarts and Quidditch and the evil Lord Voldemort, but she could not bring herself to realize that she was a twin. It baffled her to think that somewhere out there in a world she had learned of barely two days ago was a carbon copy of herself, a boy living under the care of the magical healers and nurse witches that kept him alive. He had been touched by the curse, her mother said, and was institutionalized. Locked up, when he should have been flying.   
  
At long last, the car slowed infront of a modest-looking home in the countryside, a sign outside its worn gate proclaiming it "The Burrow." Its yard was full of strange things Lily could hardly wait to inquire about, including several small, grey, potato-like creatures that scurried out of the driveway, grumbling, when Fred threw a soda can at them, causing Lily's grin to grow so large she knew it would ache later. As the car rounded the house to a bald-looking patch of ground that was clearly its parking place, it came upon the scene of a young woman in darkly-coloured robes mounting what looked like a small, sleek broomstick. The woman threw a long, red braid of hair over her shoulder and pushed off the ground, startling Lily as she floated gently into the air. With amazing ease, the woman manuevered the broomstick into a tight, perfect turn, bringing her to face the car and its inhabitants. With a tiny yelp, the woman jumped in her seat, tottered, and fell sideways off her broom, landing in the dirt with a light _oof_.   
  
"Oy, Ginny!" said Fred, climbing out of the car and rushing to the aide of the woman. Lily and Hermione climbed cautiously out of the vehicle behind him.   
  
Popping up from her place in the dirt as quickly as she had found herself there, the woman spoke, her eyes flying from Fred to the Grangers and back again. "Fred!" she said breathlessly. She bit her lip as it began to shake, and her eyes moved once again onto Hermione, where Lily had hid, nervously, behind her. "Oh, Fred...you've brought her!" Ginny rushed forward past her brother, stopping awkwardly a few feet in front of Hermione.   
  
"Hello, Ginny." Hermione said tightly, fighting to control her voice. Reaching behind her, she placed a firm hand on Lily's shoulder, pushing her out from her hiding place. The red-haired woman threw her arms around Hermione lovingly as Lily appeared at her side.   
  
"Oh, Hermione..." she said, breaking into what appeared to be a trademark Weasley grin. Then, taking first notice of the girl at Hermione's side, "Oh!"   
  
Dubiously, Hermione nodded. "Ginny, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Lily." She took a gulp of air before adding solemnly, "Your niece." 


	12. The Weasleys Three

Part Twelve: The Weasleys Three  
  
"Well...she speaks just like a proper grown woman, doesn't she?" Mrs. Weasley's speech was nigh as watery as her eyes as she watched the fleeting figures of mother and daughter clamboring toward the spare bedroom they would share in the Burrow, Fred and Ginny sitting dutifully on either side of her.   
  
"She ought to, between Hermione and that awful snob school she's been put in." Fred said, chuckling lightly. "Do you know what she told me about that place? She said that she had half a mind to tell the lot of them to 'munch her knickers' with their afternoon tea and be off!"   
  
The table of Weasleys errupted in raucus laughter, each of their faces beaming with something quite akin to pride in the humble name and traits that they shared. "Well, maybe she's still a little girl after all. But she's definitely a Weasley." Mrs. Weasley said, her laughter finally dying out. "And she looks so much like...like her father. Ron's daughter..."  
  
"Oh, mum..." Coming out of her trance, Ginny placed a consoling arm around her mother. "Don't start crying again. She's a lovely girl, and we should be happy that she's here to remind us of Ron...shouldn't we?"   
  
"Of course. Of course, dear. It's just that I--well, I...we've lost so much already, and I don't think that I could stand to-- Er, Fred? Do you think that she'll stay? Hermione, I mean."   
  
Stretching slowly over the back of his chair, Fred took a moment to think before replying, "I don't think she has a choice, mum. This is where she is supposed to be, and now that Lily knows...she knows it too, really. I saw her take out all her magic things last night when she thought I was asleep. Touching them like a china doll, she was. She can feel it. She's just scared, that's all."   
  
"Scared of what?" asked Ginny, leaning over the table curiously.  
  
"St. Mungos." The ever-present clatter of the Weasley household seemed almost to cease at the heaviness of the subject. All was quiet, until Mrs. Weasley chose to speak again.  
  
"I know the boy, Fred." she squeaked, almost inaudibly, her head hung slightly. When the only reply was the astonishment on both her children's faces, she continued. "I didn't know he was Hermione's son, of course. I've had to tend to him quite a few times when I was assigned to his end of the hall. He's very quiet, very...I always thought there was someone he reminded me of but, I could never quite place it. I don't know why I didn't see it all the time, now that I think about it."  
  
"Harry?" Ginny offered meekly.  
  
"Naturally. I didn't want to bring it up at dinner; thought it would be a bit much. But...well, she's in for quite a shock, I'll daresay." Nervously, Mrs. Weasley continued, "You don't think she's thought of that, do you?" Then, dropping her voice to yet another deep level of quiet, she added, "You don't think she knows...about the prophecy?" 


	13. Quiet

Part Thirteen: Quiet  
  
(((the website's codes are being wonky and I can't use any italics tags for this, but...this is a dream sequence, anyway.)))  
  
"No, Hermione," he said, horrorstruck and pale, shaking his head vehementy. "Don't. Don't say anything. Don't...say....anything."   
  
But she could not listen. "Ron..." she cooed, "don't be silly, I--" And then it hit her. What he had said, he meant it. He meant to tell her that he loved her, that he wanted her, passionately, romantically, totally. That all those times in school when she thought she'd seen that warm flicker in his eyes when he beheld her, she'd been right. She lurched forward, feeling the force of his honesty drawing her to him, pushing her face forward into his lap, where she wept. "Ron I'm sorry, if only I had known..."   
  
"It wouldn't have mattered." His voice was solid, resolute, neither dull nor pained. In his mind, he was merely stating fact. He stroked her head absently and rocked methodically back and forth, his actions comforting while his words ripped once again into her heart. "You'd still be with him. How could you not? Like it was written in the stars, isn't it? You're the...the lovely maiden, and he's your knight in shining armour. It's bloody brilliant. And he knows it." He laughed mirthlessly. "Guess that's why he wasn't so afraid to tell you."   
  
Hermione sat up abruptly, overcome with rage. How could she not have known? And how could he, Harry, have known all along the things Ron felt for her, and pursue her nonetheless? It was a sick game, love, and suddenly all the pieces of Ron's puzzling behavior fit into place. The bumbling and insecurity, his quiet, brooding nature and his attitude and the confidence he possessed in everyone but himself. She felt jilted, scorned; here was a man broken by love and she, though unwillingly, had been the one the break him.   
  
As she looked up at him, Hermione saw that he was weeping. Wet and earnest, the tear fell down his cheeks, dripping into his lap as they rolled off the line of his jaw. The sobs that racked his body were quiet at first and then loud, as they became a series of gutteral screeches, filling the room and vibrating in Hermione's ears. He wailed and wailed, until she decided to stop him. "Shh.." she cooed, curling her arm 'round his neck and drawing him gently toward her. "Shh." she said as their faces met, their lips touched. "Shh.." she lulled as they slipped slowly backwards onto the couch and played her favorite part in that sick game of love. "Shh..." she hushed as he begged between heavy breaths that she not tell Harry, not tell Harry...  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Hermione stirred gently in Ginny's former bedroom, heaving herself onto her other side as another dream began to take shape in her mind.   
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
"Shh," she purred, bouncing the fussy boy on her lap. "Hush, Albus....hush, my baby, or you'll wake your sister."   
  
But Hermione knew that he would not quiet, not until her nerves were hanging on the barest of threads and the sun was winking at them both between the clouds. She knew that he would wake Lily, and she would wriggle about in her basket, grunting and whining, as though at odds with her urge to cry out.   
  
Still, she persisted. "Shush, darling." she said, holding him closely to her chest. It was amazing, she thought, how much noise could come from such a tiny thing. For unlike his sister, who had been born strong and full and ruddy, baby Albus was and always had been quite gaunt and peaky. He was scarcely childlike at all, more like a tiny wax figurine which could be held securely in just one hand. She sometimes thought that his incessant bawling was merely his attempt to remind the world that he was, in fact, real, and to make up for the times when he would lie inert in his cradle for endless hours that were punctuated only by the occassional jerking spasm and the sound of his shallow breath. There was something, something wrong with him that she simply could not ignore and no doctor could place. As at last she bounced and coddled him into silence, Hermione made up her mind. She would do anything for answers, anything for some peace of mind and some...  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Detatching herself slowly from her dream world, Hermione sat up and looked about the room in which she had been sleeping. It was dark and serene and very, very "Quiet." she breathed as she lowered herself back to the soft down of the pillows. 


	14. Albus

Part Fourteen: Albus  
  
The walls of St. Mungo's were achingly white. Though the endless motion of the evenly-hung portraits and the occassional brightly-decorated corkboard provided momentary distraction, Hermione could not focus on anything but the slabs of bare, colourless wall. Her head was splitting, spinning, her stomach churning and knotting in painful succession. She walked quickly and with purpose, though she had little idea just where to find the room that she sought. Behind her, Fred dragged on nervously as Ginny followed him as closely as she could while answering a barrage of questions about St. Mungo's posed by Lily, who was holding tightly to the hand of a fawning Mrs. Weasley. The paintings on the wall greeted them all in turn with a cheerful hello or grave news about someone they had never met, and the healers and staff all waved a jolly hello to Mrs. Weasley and her group.  
  
Hermione, however, could not bear to smile back. As she neared the welcome desk next to the closed ward, her breath was shallowed, her entire being surrounded by the naked, white-hot pain of guilt. Harry's child. She could barely stand to wrap her head around it. Somehow, he was Harry's child, and she had abandoned him. But what was more...Albus was her child. And she had abandoned him. What would she say to him if, in fact, he would be able to understand her? Harry's child...Harry's child.  
  
"Harry's child." she said to the Welcome Witch at the desk as she stared fixedly at the calendar over her shoulder. "Excuse me?" said the plump girl at the desk, staring at the group with puzzlement as she wrapped her gum around her manicured finger.  
  
Hermione snapped out of her reverie as Fred laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and continued brusquely, "We're here to see Albus Granger, please. All of us. And right away."  
  
"Albus Granger?" the witch sneered as she checked a chart on a nearby cabinet, matching Hermione's icy tone. "I wasn't aware that he had a surname."  
  
Supressing the urge to rage, Hermione held her breath and her tongue as she replied, "Granger. May we see him, please?"  
  
"Right this way." They followed the haughty witch down a long corridor, past the driveling and listless faces of witches and wizards incurably affected by magic. At last, they reached a tiny corner room no bigger than a broom closet on the door of which was posted a sign that read simply "Albus."  
  
"Excuse me," Hermione addressed the witch, who was busy searching by trial-and-error for the correct door key. "Why are you keep my s--- er, Albus locked in a broom closet?"  
  
The witch shrugged. "He didn't like the other room; kept saying it was too big." She turned then to address the entire group. "There's no magic allowed by visitors to the hospitals, of course, but that rule is most strictly enforced here on the closed ward. Please do not set off any sudden lights or lumination charms; Albus doesn't like a lot of light. And he doesn't like to talk much either, so...don't expect whatever you're hoping to get out of your visit." Having finally succeeded in opening the door to Albus's room, the witch turned to leave, pausing only to ad "Oh, and don't worry about crowding him. Like I said, he doesn't like space."  
  
Fred supressed a chuckle as the nurse bounded away, shaking her head to some internal thought. "A might surly, isn't she?"  
  
Mrs. Weasley gave him a gentle slap on the arm as she siddled up next to Hermione at the door. "And rightly she should be" she said with the smile. "She did worse on her OWLs than even you."  
  
Hermione gave a weak smile as she gripped the doorknob tightly, her knuckles turning the colour of the infuriating walls as she turned it, slowly, and let herself in. As she stepped timidly through the threshold, her party spilled in quickly behind her, Lily bringing up the rear as she hid nervously in Ginny's robes. To everyone's surprise, the boy called Albus was sitting stick-straight at the end of his bed, hands folded in his lap, staring, alert, and calm. "Goodwitch Weasley," he said without inflection. "Hello, Hermione Granger." 


	15. The AlmostTwin Connection

**Part Fifteen: The Almost-Twin Connection**

"How-- how did you know my name?" Hermione gasped, horrified. She was not ready, not ready to face the truth. And yet, he already knew. Hermione could feel the last of her ties to normalcy and happiness unraveling, slowly, as panic rose inside her. The only sound in the air as Albus stood to make his way toward a shabby bookcase was that of Hermione's labored breathing.

Without a word, Albus selected a book and turned each page in a painstakingly careful fashion until he came upon one that suited him. Finally, he spoke. "_Who's Who Among Wizards and Witches_, seventh millinium edition, page seven-hundred forty-two." He offered the page to his guests as pointed to a familiar picture. "Hermione Granger." Fred gave a hearty chuckle as he surveyed book and boy. "A regular book-worm he is, just like his old mum." There came another gasp from Hermione, but the comment went unnoticed by the small boy at the center of everyone's attention.

Instead, he turned to Fred. "Fred Weasley." He pointed to Ginny before adding "And sister."

"Albus has seen a picture of you both when he snuck into my space at the front desk, haven't you son?"

Albus nodded, turning at last to face a fascinated Lily. "But I don't know her."

Ignoring her sense of decorum, Lily stepped close to the strange boy, determined to introduce herself before the fear of waking up from this dream world could fully permeate her sense of wonderment. "I'm your twin sister...sort of." She said, giving a wobbly glance to her mother, who had yet to make it clear to Lily's eight-year-old mind just how two people could be almost twins. "I'm Lily." she concluded as she offered up a hand to her brother.

"Lily." Albus repeated, reaching for her hand. At first, it looked as though he meant to shake it, but he did not. Instead, Albus turned Lily's hand upward, positioning it so that her palm was facing him and then placing his own smaller palm against hers. Had the two been a normal brother-sister pair, this moment would have been a Kodak moment, one to preserve in one's memory and cherish for years to come. Lily and Albus, unfortunately, were far from being a normal pair.

"Albus!!" Hermione screamed as a flash of light shot out from the entwined fingertips of both children, sending the skittish boy running for a haven under his tiny bed as the peevish nurse that had brought the Lily and her family into the room burst through the door with furious exclamations.

"I thought I told you that he doesn't like light!!!"


	16. The Prophecy

**Part Sixteen: The Prophecy**

"Albus! Albus, come out from under that bed right now! And would you stop that whining?! Albus, come out here right...NOW...or I'm going to get--" Hermione's tight grip on the nurse witch's arm stopped her clawing for him under the bed as quickly as it had started. "You're going to what? How dare you yell at my son after he"  
"Your SON? You think that Albus is your SON? Lady, I work with a lot of crazy people, but that's got to be the wackiest thing I've ever heard. Maybe you ought to consider checking yourself in next to your precious"  
"HEY!!" Mrs. Weasley's booming yell, having been perfected over years of yelling at her brood of roudy children, settled the din in the broom closet to a single sound-- a chant of sorts emanating from beneath the sterile white sheets of Albus's bed. "Three, the number of ancient powers, life over death in divisible hours. Only three can defeat the one whose powers brought the three undone." The tiny boy repeated, rocking himself almost violently back and forth as he spoke. The voice entoning the chant was unlike that of any eight-year-old that Hermione had ever seen. Dark, gutteral, and frightening, the voice coming from the mouth of her son seemed to embody each and every one of her fears that also stemmed from him. But it was not the tone with which he spoke that frightened her the very most, for that position belonged to what it was that Albus was saying in those devilish tones-- what she had feared all along, even if she could not find the words to express it.  
"The prophecy!" gasped Ginny, Fred, and Mrs. Weasley all at once, causing Hermione's head to snap back in their direction and Lily's lip to quiver as she began to cry out of her frustration and fear.  
"P-prophecy? Fred, I thought we were here about St. Mungo's"  
"Well..." Fred drew in a slow, deliberate breath. "Rodger really is trying to close it, you know. And we really do need your help with that and all, but we thought that maybe, while you were here, you might want to take a look at the prophecy that"  
"Oh, Fred! Not the prophecy that we were"  
"Ahem!" The rude nurse witch, now reasonably subdued, cleared her throat to remind to room of her presence. "I think there's something that you should see."


End file.
